Low-Power Microcontrollers Target Medical Apps

A family of single-chip low power microcontrollers, the MSP430FG43x series, is optimized for portable medical instruments such as blood pressure monitors and pH and glucose meters. Included on-chip are nine timer channels, a 200 Ksamples/s, 12-bit a/d converter, dual 12-bit d/a converters, three configurable precision op amps, a USART, 48 I/O pins, a 128-segment LCD display driver, and memory configurations of up to 60 KB of flash and 2 KB of RAM. To ensure safety in medical applications, the MCUs contain a zero-power brown-out reset function, supply voltage supervisor, and a fail-safe clock system. An on-chip direct memory access (DMA) controller enhances signal-processing capabilities. Three versions are available, each with different amounts of flash and RAM: G4347 with 32 KB of flash, 2 KB RAM; G4348 with 48 KB of flash, 2 KB RAM; and G4348 with 60 KB of flash, 2 KB RAM. The MCUs are packaged in an 80-pin QFP. Pricing starts at $6.50 each/1,000. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC., Dallas, TX. (800) 477-8924.